The Things Cancer Will Never Take From You | Alyea Pierce

The Things Cancer Will Never Take From You | Alyea Pierce | TEDxOxford

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@laurahodgins7244 6 жыл бұрын

OMG girl you nailed it. Had mastectomy 9 years ago from cancer. I never went to any support groups or walks, because I wanted to separate myself from cancer. I didn't want to be the cancer woman. It took until this time where I can look at other people's outlooks on this terrible disease and it fills my soul with love, tears, and keeping the spirit alive....beautiful....

@carrie0153 6 жыл бұрын

Here's the transcript: Remember me as I am. Remember to speak of me in one life, to not separate my name into before and after. Remember me in spirit, for the body withers and the maggots always come to feast. Remember me as a fighter, a beacon of light shining at the end of the tunnel. Remember me as a body built of stories. Remember me for being messy, for doing and being curious, for tasting every ounce of this pain, for wondering for the 5th time today, “Am I going to die?” because all of those things tell me that I felt, that I lived this life for you and you and you and you. We cannot live this life only for ourselves. Remember me as a part of you. Remember me for leaving you with story within your bones. Remember me for all that I have done when I was here, not for how I did not look like myself anymore. Not for how I needed you in more ways than you signed up for. Not for how some days chemo took my faith for itself. I want to curse the air for its greed for taking my last breath. But cancer has no justice, no sympathy for its host, no comprehension of love in its finest hour. It tries to teach the pretty things within us, tries to take the pretty within us, tries to take what isn’t theirs like loved ones like limbs like his hair. Daddy why is he losing his hair? Tries to take the laughter exploding from his belly, tries to take his stories because cancer knows that our stories; our stories are the synapse that will ever connect you and me. These stories have magic beneath their seams we need to remember our stories, to tell out stories of when the warriors have gone to battle and the war was fought and lost. Of when the ships sailing west sink beneath the deepest, darkest secrets of the sea, and the pirates return home empty-handed. These stories are the best moments and the worst moments of our lives, living and breathing as one. They are the before and after, taken for granted and swelled with regret because it is far too late. They know the simple and the heartbreaking, the profound and the mundane. They have no perfect ending and no rhyme. I miss him. I miss my uncle. And, I did not yell “I love you” from the mountaintop. I did not say goodbye for I feared it would be our last. We both knew it would be our last. But, I know understand that the body withers. The body withers and the maggots will always come to feast, but cancer will never be able to take away our memories, our jokes. The fact that I had the opportunity to see and feel and breathe in such a man. The fact that you did not vomit today. The fact that you were able to read today. The fact that you ate a cheeseburger and fries today. The fact you went outside today. You went 20 minutes without thinking about cancer today. Today, you danced. You were able to walk amongst the Sun and all the pretty things this earth burst. Cancer will never be able to take away your before and after because my uncle may have passed but I see him every time my cousin smiles, hear him every time his son laughs, feel him every time his sister and brothers walk into a room. His death reminds me of how much he has lived. Cancer. Cancer will never be able to take away anything. I know he is seated at the right hand of the table, next to his wife as they drown into each other’s ears. This. This. This will be our last supper, and we will mount this memory on the wall and tell the world what magnificence occurred in this room tonight.